Gave my 642 some love

[Lucky Strike]

I bought a new no-lock 642 about year and a half ago. Bought a used Mika pocket holster and been carrying it in summer months ever since. Definitely my most carried gun.....it really shouldn't be but convenience is often a big factor.

Well a couple months ago I decided to spend some money on my trusty J-Frame

First it went to "Actions by T"s Teddy Jacobson for his complete action job. It smoothed up the trigger a lot and lowered the weight (I think the stock weight was like 16lbs). Still on the heavy side but I think that's just the nature of the beast for JFrames. He ended up installing a longer firing pin to maintain full reliability with the new springs.

He also chamfered the cylinder chambers, polished/contoured the trigger (feels like my Geiselle SSA now) and painted the front sight ramp bright orange. He jeweled the front and the back of the cylinder for free too. I liked the work he did so I subsequently sent him my GP100 too (haven't gotten it back yet)

While Teddy had it I bought a Crimson Trace LG-405 to extend the usable range of the gun as well as give it some recoil dampening. Really something I should have gotten when I bought the gun.


Since reading up on appendix carry here I looked around for a suitable holster that I could use with shorts/t-shirt.

After playing around with the Mika holster, moving it around to various locations in my appendix area to find the "sweet spot", I found that I wanted something that'd ride pretty low but couldn't find anything that matched my needs after searching through a bunch of holster makers websites.

Came across RKBA Leather and they had something close. After a couple emails back and forth with them describing what I wanted I was able to get something that was custom built to my needs.....cost was pretty affordable too (about $40).

The holster works good and makes the thing supremely concealable and lets me carry other stuff in my right front pocket. I could probably now conceal with shorts and a wifebeater if I wanted to. It's actually more comfortable to sit down with this holster then with it in the pocket with the Mika holster.

I really like how everything turned out and my most carried gun will now likely get carried even more. Especially since I can carry it now with certain pants that I couldn't pocket carry with before like slacks.


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[ccoker]

nice setup
is that holster nice and thin?

[Dos Cylindros]

Bad ass little snubby right there, very nice!

[gtmtnbiker98]

Very nice indeed.

[Lucky Strike]

nice setup
is that holster nice and thin?

Yeah it's pretty thin as far as leather holsters go.....I'll take some pictures showing the thickness

[ST911]

What did the work cost you?

[SeriousStudent]

That really looks very nice. I have long thought about having the action tuned on my 642 as well.

I have an RKBA J-frame holster also. It's well molded, sturdy and still thin. Steve's work is very nice - good price/performance ratio.

I'm going to have him make me G-26 holster for the cargo pants/shorts I like in the summer.

[Lucky Strike]

Here's some pics showing more of the holster. I actually ordered a Grandfather Oak Kydex holster and it showed up today so I did a comparison pic to show the thickness. I'd say the leather one is about twice as thick then the kydex. The Grandfather oak holster has an interesting stud piece that goes under the belt to keep it in place on the draw.

It also rides higher then the RKBA. One one hand this makes it easier to draw.....my rkba is set for maximum comfort so it's pretty low but to draw you pretty much have to grab it with a lobster pincher hand....my middle/ring/pinky fingers can't get between the pants and the grip until it's halfway out of the holster. This slows my draw down a second or two. On the other hand the Grandfather Oak isn't all that comfortable when sitting down....it's not painful or anything but the grip does dig into my gut and would probably get annoying fast if I had to sit for a long time.

I guess trying to strike this balance is the joys of appendix carry. Of course if I lose the gut (I'm probably about 20lbs away from it being a non-issue) the kydex would be more comfortable.


As for the action work, the price for that was $150 and then the extra work (chamber chamfering/trigger contour) was another $70.


My 642 now costs me the same that my H&K P30 did but I carry the thing so much that I figure it's money well spent. Of course my P30 is currently at Grayguns getting their action job/trigger reset reduction work so they won't cost the same for long.


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[Sherman A. House]

Very cool.

Teddy Jacobson does GREAT work!

[ColdDeadHands]

nice setup!